1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to baseball gloves. More particularly, the present invention relates to a baseball glove having one or a plurality of inflatable chambers in the palm portion of the glove, which may be manually inflated by the wearer of the glove, and wherein the air in the chambers can be either manually or, through force, released from the chambers.
2. General Background
In the sport of baseball, the fielders glove is an essential item which all members of the team, on defense, wear, in order to retrieve a ball that has been thrown or hit to them during the course of play. Over the years that the sport has been in existence, some changes have been made in the construction of baseball gloves, such as the shape of the web portion of the glove, in order to form a larger area to catch the ball, or to give the overall glove larger proportions.
However, few modifications have addressed the portion of the baseball glove which covers the palm of the players hand. This area of the glove should be of concern since a great number of the balls caught by a player are caught in this section of the glove, i.e., the portion between the lower glove edge and the bottom of the fingers. Oftentimes this results in a painful stoppage of the ball, since the palm portion possesses very little, if any, padding, and usually only a double layer of material, such as leather on the exterior and fabric next to the players palm, between the impact of the ball and the players bare hand. This fact is even more pronounced when children are involved. Due to the fact that children are less agreeable to the pain of handling a ball in the palm area of the glove, there is a need to reduce or completely eliminate this eventuality.
Other objects of the invention will be obvious to those skilled in the art from the following description of the invention.